Brandon Paul officially named Illinois Mr. Basketball

As was mentioned earlier this week, the early word was that BP would be this year's Illinois Mr. Basketball, edging another future Illini, Jereme Richmond for the honor.

Now according to the Trib, the announcement has been made official. Apparently the vote was the closest in the nearly 30 year history, beating Richmond by only 16 points.

If you aren't excited about the next couple years of Illini basketball, whats wrong with you?

While neither player was selected as Mcdonald's All Americans, they are both very very talented basketball players, and Bruce should be ecstatic that both will be playing for him in the next few years. More importantly, he should be excited that a Mr Basketball  will be back in Champaign, because you can basically track the success of the Illinois program by the years they have gotten the best player in the state.

If you read the list of the players named to the award over the last two decades, it features players who would go on to dominate in college,  and often players who went straight to the pros, like Shaun Livingston and Kevin Garnett. Or in the cases of  Derrick Rose, Jon Scheyer and Julian Wright, high profile players that the Illini failed to lure to Champaign.

You will also more than likely notice, that the Illini have not had an IMB since Dee Brown in 2002.  Since then we have lost out on the big ticket players to the likes of Duke, Memphis, and most painfully, Kansas. The criticism of Bruce's recruiting can be seen plainly on this list.

From 1994 to 2002, players named IMB went only two places, straight to the pros, or to Champaign, including a three year run of Sergio McClain, Frank Williams and Brian Cook. But since Dee back in '02 the players have all gone elsewhere.

But in the same way that IMB can be used as an example of the team's poor recruiting, it can now be used as proof of a recruiting turn around. With Paul and Richmond Bruce is getting the best players in the state for 2009, and 2010. And with other instate players like D.J. Richardson,  Joe Bertrand and Crandall Head also coming in over the next two years, one has to be confident about the Illini's pull as finally the team to beat in recruitinng in Illinois once again.

This is a big day for the coaching staff, as it could be the first of quite a few Illinois Misters Basketball heading down to play in the Assembly Hall.